V – Fragments of Lucidness

I woke up. This time I knew very well where I was… inside that clinic… As much as they tried the meds couldn’t get the better of me, I was the lord of me, even though the doctors kept saying the contrary. Pardon the interruption, let’s get back to Juiz de Fora. Yes, I was treated very warmly there and I got along with the diversity, a delightful diversity of harmonious differences. And my mind opened… I thought of Sandra, of Calabar, of my girlfriend… It was a festive time, and no one was more excited than I on this occasion. The party was everywhere. There will always be those conservatives who will say that this is just one more sign… If it’s a sign then it’s of joy and happiness… They are keen on classifying it as euphoria… Some doctors do not support the excess of other people’s happiness… Science and their classifications… Let’s return to the party.

Marquinhos, my dad’s very sympathetic companion was completing forty and odd years old. The party was set… A lot of gays, lesbians, and in-betweens, the party was “poppin’ off” as they say. Late afternoon, I began to douse my organism with beer. I rambled on, in between swigs and puffs of cheap cigarettes, prose and more prose… And behold the figure appeared, perhaps one of the key characters for understanding how I ended up here, and I was awestruck. There isn’t much of a way to explain, maybe craziness is always seduced by adventure. But that woman, Tatiana, unknowingly pulled me out of my center of gravity. A mix of characteristics stuck in my mind in such a way that would take a long time for them to get out.

Like Sandra… Tatiana was a psychologist for the Gay Mineiro Moviment, MGM, a pretty, full bodied woman, she had content, attitude and knowledge. Passionate ingredients, are they not? She had a captivating dialogue, an intriguing beauty and a taste for a rock n’ roll life style… She was an embodiment of my shadier wild desires. Or was she just an extraordinary person? Maybe both… Or neither… The fact is that this little missy charmed me. And we talked for hours, and hours and hours… Maybe it wasn’t so long after all but the memories keep escaping my mind… It’s difficult to remember the details, her features… Her figure stood like a mirage in my mind, without an exact form but ever enchanting. Maybe it’s the meds. Damn them. She had a girlfriend. I had a girlfriend. A tasty and sexy mess! And Sandra was still in my mind, it should have gone beyond that simple conversation, but something said that it could not. And the noble traitor Calabar… Another beer in Juiz de Fora! Not!

The lights in my room went out. This is the lack of freedom that they spoke of. They even want to tell you what time to go to sleep in this clinic … We don’t even have the right to control our own light. This is the moral of the “healthy”. But the drugs will not get the better of me. Neither will the lack of light. I need to explain, you have to understand the web of meanings. Without light there is no way. But there is always a light. The size of the flow of ideas in my mind keeps me from sleeping… The nurse arrives to accompany me on her late night shift. How kind she is! She sometimes seems forced … But no, maybe she isn’t pretending … There are still good people in the world of the “healthy” … I hope so … She comes with the meds, I must take advantage of the little time they leave me to continue telling you … I was in Juiz de Fora…

Night was falling, and the agitation was growing … My hormones, thoughts, feelings were very agitated, confused, all going too fast. The music stimulated me in a drum n’ bass rhythm. I flowed. I washed down more beer, which came down like water, and cigarettes, which flooded my lungs and stimulated my neurons. I wanted to try. I had to allow myself to experience what I wanted. There could be no guilt, the environment was of freedom in the fullest sense …The scene was perfect for me let free my bonds and yield to all the temptations and experiences that were presented. Tatiana, bisexual, an open possibility, the MGM in full party, I was there, amazed by everything and delighted at the same time with the ambient … I couldn’t miss another chance, like I did with Sandra … Another drink, another cigarette …

While all this went through my mind, this whirlwind of emotions, elevated to full volume by alcohol, a drag queen show started playing. It was a common event there, funny, relaxed … I sat near the bar, watching the show without paying much attention to it. My thoughts consumed me more … Immediately after the show, the drag who performed approached me and began to play around with me. I went along for a while but was not interested in the little game, I was interested in her, as she fled from my sight. At this point I no longer thought of my girlfriend, or Sandra, my energies were directed to that conquest. She bothered me, without her knowing it… A mere conversation had led to that discharge of emotions … And without more ado, here is this drag who, in the midst of their playful banter, decides to sit on my lap and play slide …

I can’t very well remember my reaction, but I know that the gesture aroused a blast in me… An invasion. Invaded. That’s how I felt. I didn’t give all of this liberty to the kid dressed in drag. He transposed an area he should not of, and moreover, at that very moment I was a mile a minute. The explosive combination exploded. I burst. I was aggressive. Pissed, would be more appropriate. My blood rose, boiled. They pulled the drag away from me, I withdrew from the party. The euphoria of the moment was broken, a mixture of indignation, anger, and revolt came over me. I isolated myself from the music. Nobody understood, not even you reading must understand why I would be so outraged at such a frivolous joke. Not even I can understand. Also because the scene doesn’t appear clearly in my mind, only flashes of the explosion, threats of violence, isolation. My father did not understand, acting like a libertarian and a moralist said I was being a jerk. Maybe I was, but I could not see. Perhaps that single act of the drag unchained a series of emotions that flooded my fantastical universe in a moment of liberation of my repressed desires, after all that avidity for sexual sensory experiences. And liberation turned into repression … Maybe then my way to Pinel has accelerated. But there are no causes, only fragmentary processes, as the memories that come to mind are constantly being suppressed by drugs.